December 2011 - Arch-releng - lists.archlinux.org

[arch-releng] archiso's (?) /dev/dm-* and /dev/loop devices and how to ignore them in AIF
by Dieter Plaetinck 25 Jan '12

25 Jan '12

So, in aif we switched approaches to list all possible block devices the user can install Arch to. at first, we listed blockdevices directly in /dev, by having some expressions like /dev/hd*, /dev/sd*, then later we needed to add /dev/vd*, /dev/xvd* and more to support all kinds of hardware and virtualisation solutions. This was a bit of a kludge, so we approached the problem from the other direction: Now we go over everything in /sys/block and filter _out_ the stuff we _don't_ want. (such as devices with size 0 - empty card readers - type 5 - cdrom drives) etc. see https://github.com/Dieterbe/aif/blob/develop/src/core/libs/lib-blockdevices… This seems to work at least a tiny bit better, even though the problem is similar (we need to maintain filters to remove what we don't want..) I think the final filter we need to add is for the following devices: /dev/dm-0 /dev/dm-1 /dev/dm-2 /dev/loop0 /dev/loop1 /dev/loop100 /dev/loop101 /dev/loop102 /dev/loop103 /dev/loop104 /dev/loop105 /dev/loop106 /dev/loop107 /dev/loop108 /dev/loop109 /dev/loop110 /dev/loop2 /dev/loop3 /dev/loop4 /dev/loop5 /dev/loop6 /dev/loop7 are these all created by archiso? what exactly are they for? does anyone know what is the best way to ignore them? * some property in /sys/block/<dev>/ ? * how about just maintaining a list of exactly all these filenames .. or: * how about having archiso maintain a file called /var/aif-blockdevices or something? then aif can read that file and ignore blockdevices based on what it finds there. (just don't call it archiso-blockdevices or something, because AIF is supposed to be able to run in several environments)

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[arch-releng] grub install not listing partitions
by Dieter Plaetinck 05 Jan '12

05 Jan '12

Why exactly don't we list partitions anymore? (see https://github.com/Dieterbe/aif/commit/55190c0c81fc76f8b2b3983e790f2c7aacf4…) IIRC you said it shouldn't be really needed, but turns out it is: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/25726 see also http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-releng/2011-March/001557.html so we should probably list again all blockdevices (partitions and devices themselves) Dieter

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[arch-releng] Arch Linux Official Installation Guide in git
by Karol Blazewicz 26 Dec '11

26 Dec '11

Is http://projects.archlinux.org/aif.git/plain/doc/official_installation_guide… the latest version? It says so on https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Official_Installation_Guide. Will the Official Installation Guide that's in the wiki be updated?

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[arch-releng] Christmas Release?
by Thomas Bächler 26 Dec '11

26 Dec '11

I am not sure what happened in AIF, but archiso has seen some improvements. Should we push out a Christmas Release with the latest stuff? Once the pacman 4/signing stuff is finished and in core, tweaks to AIF will be needed which will probably delay another release, so better do one now, before that happens. What do you guys think?

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[arch-releng] rc.conf documentation
by Dieter Plaetinck 25 Dec '11

25 Dec '11

Hi, rc.conf is a bit documented in several places: 1) in rc.conf itself, although documentation there is a bit limited (not always explaining what things are for exactly) but it does contain stuff like examples for networking. 2) in the official installation guide, which has historically been more extensive in describing what things are for and how to make your choice, although it lags behind because it is not tightly coupled to rc.conf, usually I update it when I notice (or somebody tells me) it's out of date. 3) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Rc.conf which is similar to (2) but with a few more tips, it seems to be maintained by the community. Also I notice there is no manpage for rc.conf. How can we improve this situation? Maybe by maintaining a man page for rc.conf which is as extensive as what currently in the official install guide? then, in the official installation guide, I can just refer to the rc.conf manpage, meaning the documentation is always in sync, at the same time it would also allow to make the documentation in rc.conf a bit more minimal. Dieter

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[arch-releng] rc.conf documentation
by Dieter Plaetinck 25 Dec '11

25 Dec '11

Hi, rc.conf is a bit documented in several places: 1) in rc.conf itself, although documentation there is a bit limited (not always explaining what things are for exactly) but it does contain stuff like examples for networking. 2) in the official installation guide, which has historically been more extensive in describing what things are for and how to make your choice, although it lags behind because it is not tightly coupled to rc.conf, usually I update it when I notice (or somebody tells me) it's out of date. 3) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Rc.conf which is similar to (2) but with a few more tips, it seems to be maintained by the community. Also I notice there is no manpage for rc.conf. How can we improve this situation? Maybe by maintaining a man page for rc.conf which is as extensive as what currently in the official install guide? then, in the official installation guide, I can just refer to the rc.conf manpage, meaning the documentation is always in sync, at the same time it would also allow to make the documentation in rc.conf a bit more minimal. Dieter

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[arch-releng] WIP: qemu-kvm helper for testing VM's
by Dieter Plaetinck 24 Dec '11

24 Dec '11

Hi, i created a simple script to run test/install VM's based on qemu-kvm. i started off with http://blog.falconindy.com/articles/build-a-virtual-army.html i didn't test the networking yet (in fact, i have networking disabled for now) but the useful thing about this script is it automatically adds the right serial/console parameters to the kernel args, when booting archiso, using xdotool (for this to work, ttyS0 needs to be setup in inittab). two problems: 1) i can't do the same xdotool trick yet when booting the actual system, because syslinux doesn't appear in the terminal when booting the system, whereas it does appear when booting archiso. (this is why for now you get to see both the terminal and a vga window in vm_run()) 2) when booting the target system, the kernel doesn't seem to find the blockdevice at all. (whereas it just works when booting archiso). here's what I have so far, maybe somebody finds it useful: feedback very welcome. #!/bin/bash mem=1024 cpus=2 net='nic,model=virtio' drive='file=arch-testbox,if=virtio' cdrom=$HOME/downloads/archlinux-2011.12.24_10-40-01-core-i686.iso vm_install () { (sleep 2; xdotool key Tab ; sleep 1; xdotool type --delay 30 " serial=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8"; xdotool key Return) & qemu-kvm -m $mem -smp $cpus -net $net -drive $drive -cdrom $cdrom -boot d -serial /dev/tty -nographic } vm_run () { # TODO: fix this, syslinux doesn't appear on tty (whereas it does appear when booting archiso) #(sleep 2; xdotool key Tab ; sleep 1; xdotool type --delay 30 " serial=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8"; xdotool key Return) & qemu-kvm -m $mem -smp $cpus -net $net -drive $drive -cdrom $cdrom -serial /dev/tty } #vm_install vm_run

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[arch-releng] grub install not listing partitions
by Eric Fernandez 15 Dec '11

15 Dec '11

Hi, I am the original reporter of https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/25726 and as Desmond Cox explained, it is more practical to use chainloading than having one grub. Maintenance is more difficult when having several kernels from different distribution in one grub, and increases risks of having one distribution wrongly editing entries when updating their own kernel options. Like Desmond, I never experienced any problem installing grub in a partition. Removing the possibility to install grub in a partition is in my opinion contrary to KISS, especially if there are no stable alternatives (I shall try syslinux, as you recommend, but other posts make me wonder if this would work for me). Is it possible to allow installing grub on partitions as an "advanced" option? Thanks a lot in advance.

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[arch-releng] [RFC] one more step forward to become archiso as self-pxe-server...
by Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi 04 Dec '11

04 Dec '11

Hello Current releng images are enabled to be used as self-PXE-server enviroment with: dnsmasq: For DHCP and TFTP nbd: for NBD nfs-utils: for NFS I like to add (They do not carry any extra dependency) Name : vsftpd Installed Size : 216.00 K Name : darkhttpd Installed Size : 36.00 K With these two tiny packages we will cover all protocols supported by archiso at this moment. The wiki page[#1] describe how to use live-enviroment to do this tasks. This also makes my life much easier when I want to test these things :) Any objections? Thanks. [#1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Archiso_as_pxe_server#HTTP.2FFTP_and_N… -- Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi \cos^2\alpha + \sin^2\alpha = 1

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[arch-releng] [PATCH] download: add a link to the new netboot environment
by Thomas Bächler 04 Dec '11

04 Dec '11

--- public/views.py | 1 + settings.py | 3 +++ templates/public/download.html | 2 ++ 3 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) diff --git a/public/views.py b/public/views.py index 4051261..8fb60c7 100644 --- a/public/views.py +++ b/public/views.py @@ -63,6 +63,7 @@ def download(request): ) context = { 'releng_iso_url': settings.ISO_LIST_URL, + 'releng_pxeboot_url': settings.PXEBOOT_URL, } return list_detail.object_list(request, qset.order_by('mirror__country', 'mirror__name', 'protocol'), diff --git a/settings.py b/settings.py index 77f84ba..b22b429 100644 --- a/settings.py +++ b/settings.py @@ -118,6 +118,9 @@ # URL to fetch a current list of available ISOs ISO_LIST_URL = 'http://releng.archlinux.org/isos/' +# URL to the PXE netboot instructions +PXEBOOT_URL = 'http://releng.archlinux.org/pxeboot/' + # URL for SVN access for fetching commit messages (note absence of packages or # community bit on the end, repo.svn_root is appended) SVN_BASE_URL = 'svn+ssh://svn.archlinux.org/srv/svn-' diff --git a/templates/public/download.html b/templates/public/download.html index 36aca9a..3e33ab3 100644 --- a/templates/public/download.html +++ b/templates/public/download.html @@ -122,6 +122,8 @@ <ul> <li><a href="{{ releng_iso_url }}" title="Release Engineering ISO download">Download snapshots</a></li> + <li><a href="{{ releng_pxeboot_url }}" + title="Arch Linux Netboot Live System">Boot latest snapshots over the network</a></li> <li><a href="{% url releng-test-overview %}" title="Release Engineering ISO feedback">Feedback</a></li> </ul> -- 1.7.8

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